The Anniversary Syndrome
by Shaggley
Summary: Ten years ago Kim Possible started her journey, now, after a countless number of adventures, missions and lives, she finds herself facing all this, and asking herself where she will go from now on. If she will go anywhere... - My submission for the decennial celebration. Thank you all.
1. Dedication

For Mark Mac Corkle and Bob Schooley,  
because they made all this;

and For Christy Carlson Romano and Nicole Sullivan,  
because they made all this Possible.


	2. The Anniversary Syndrome

**The Anniversary Syndrome**

By Shaggley

Kim Possible was spending the most important day in the year alone in the long corridor, standing with her arms crossed behind her back, and looking at one of the pictures that covered both the walls around her.

She sighed, and took a step forward, looking at the next; it was one in the form of a large square, with a golden frame; the ghost of a smile crawled on her mouth's edges. She had arrived at her favourite section of all the corridor; Kim's hand moved to touch the smooth surface, and she bathed in the warmth that the image was showing her.

In itself, the picture wasn't warm at all: it showed Kim herself, dressed in her old mission suit, with a look of surprise and pain on her face, trying to grasp at the hovercraft on which a triumphant Drakken and a shocked Shego stood, and inevitably falling to her death.

The Kim looking at the picture fixed her eyes on the Kim falling down, and exhaled a long breath.  
This had been one of her finest hours, as was showed in the picture immediately next the one she was looking at, their frames touching – a way to show that it was a series. The next depicted Kim on the roof of what looked like a school building, standing in front of Shego, with a look that was depicted in between anger and acceptance, and a hint of a smile on her face; next to her, Shego was crying, too, but she had her arms open wide and was walking to her.

Kim smiled again, and she wondered why remembering such good moments could bring a feeling of her heart caught in a grip; she turned her head and glanced at her back, looking at the lines and lines of pictures, each one different in size, colour, and frame, running from where she was to the end of the corridor, which was bathed in a white light.

God, she had walked that far already, and she still felt that grip on her heart.

She turned again, and took another step forward, looking at the next picture – the redhead took away her eyes from it only when she felt a warm hand touching her shoulder.

Kim smiled.

"Hi."

Shego, for once not wearing her catsuit but in a rather elegant black dress that left her smooth shoulders exposed, frowned at the simple word.

"I was wondering where you were hiding. The others are still there, Kim."

Kim smiled sadly, her eyebrows arching together.

"I know. I can hear the noise of the party from here."

In fact, in the air there was the faintest hint of music, laughters and voices, but it was easily covered by the mere sound of her breathing, so she was able to not think about it. And the more she walked toward the end of the corridor, the smaller the noise got.

Shego tried to smile.

"Come on. Rufus is even doing this cool thing with peanuts."

Kim let out a brief sigh.

"I... wanted to stay a bit with myself."

Shego put her other hand on Kim's shoulder.

"Kim Possible, winner of the Most Social Pain-In-The-Ass prize for the last ten years, wants to be left _alone_? Did you finally set your mind on save the world from your taste in clothes?"

Kim turned her head back to the picture, this time, without really looking at it; instead, she was only feeling the warmth coming from Shego's hands on her shoulders and the faint dampness of her breath.

"It's not that."

Behind her, Shego frowned again; it didn't happen often, but when the redhead seemed impervious to her bickering, it meant there was something serious at hand. She drew a short breath. Shego hated getting serious.

"Then what? If you want to tell me, that is. Otherwise, I'll go back and enjoy the Buffoon's attempts at choking himself with his spoon."

"Call him Ron, Shego. At least today, please." Kim remarked with a tired tone; then she paused for a moment. "It's not that I wanted to escape from the party. It's just that..."

Kim sighed, and said nothing, slowly shaking her head. Shego didn't answer, she just gently kneaded Kim's shoulders with her hands. Maybe a bit of low-power plasma to relax the muscles.

"... that... you see, Shego..."

Another pause, longer this time.  
Then, Kim pointed at the picture in front of her.

"... it's this."

"The picture."

"No... it's this whole thing. This corridor!"

Kim freed herself from Shego's soothing touch and turned on herself, opening her arms wide.

The older woman stood there in her black dress, arms falling down on her sides, emerald eyes fixed on Kim's form. She didn't say anything.

"It's all this. Do you remember... ah... do you remember how this started, Shego?"

The woman waved her hand.

"The thing between me and you? Doy, sure. I was enjoying the sight of you being turned into shark food. Good times."

Kim nodded.

"That's it. Good times."

Shego arched an eyebrow, inviting Kim to go on.

"... good times... as in a long ago, get it? It has been ten years."

The green woman kept her mouth shut, but inside her a feeling started to take form, and she didn't like where Kim's speech was seeming to go.

"And... it had been a wonderful time, I admit it. I _died_a couple of times, you died a couple more..."

Shego grimaced, with a look that was saying 'thank you very much'.

"... but I also had an incredible number of adventures. I travelled in space, I travelled in time, between dimensions... between different stories and versions of myself... And I almost always managed to find my family. And Ron. And _you_."

Kim turned again, and started to walk.

"I mean... this is my favourite section, you know? This wall", she pointed to her left, "it's about me and Ron, and this one", she pointed to her right – there were less pictures, but Shego looked at them with a fond smile instead of the snarl that had met the other wall, "it's about me and you."

Shego moved her eyes back from the pictures – she had recognized most of them with a single look, but she meant to examine them better – back to Kim, who was still with her arms open.

"This is the best that had ever happened to me. And to you, in a way."

Shego nodded.

"This," Kim said pointing at one picture that was near the centre of the wall, that showed the redhead herself and Shego ready to depart, sitting on a van in the middle of a lonely road, the two women looking at each other with fond looks in their eyes, both of them a bit older than they were right now, "it's one of the sweetest. Even if I'm still sorry about your throat."

The green woman smiled and looked at Kim.

"For what happened there it was a small price. Red."

Kim smiled briefly from over her shoulder.

"And this one, do you remember this one?"

She pointed at one picture that was next to the last, showing Kim and Shego with normal clothes, sitting in a dark corner of a bar, talking.

Shego exhaled.

"Don't I. The beginning of the relationship with the three most troublesome women in my life. You, and those two devils."

"This. This was... embarrassing... but worth it in the end."

Kim pointed at a picture showing a triumphant Drakken with some sort of strange device on his face - very similar to shades, and looking at the shocked forms of Kim and Shego.

The green woman pinched her chin.

"I still can't believe how much stupid Dr. D. turned out to be in that one. But it was definitely worth it."

Kim took another step, and moved even closer to the wall, touching the frame of two pictures standing next to each other; there was another frame to their right, but it was empty. The first image showed Shego on a bed, her green shade gone, hand in hand with Kim, who was listening to her talk. The next showed Kim reaching for Shego, who was trying to keep shut a door in a what seemed to be an hotel room. Near to the corner of the image, the plump figure of Big Daddy Brotherson taking his leave.

"I still wait for it to be completed."

Shego nodded slowly.

"So do I. Sorry for your stuff toy, though."

Kim waved her hand, making sign it wasn't important.

"And, this, Shego, this..."

She touched the frame of the picture that was in the centre of the group with the ones with the golden frame. Shego took a step closer and put her hand on it too, only inches away from the readhead's.

The picture showed what seemed to be a hall of a castle; Shego was asleep, or maybe unconscious, in a cage a few feet away from the silent form of Kim, holding a silver box from which strange filaments protruded, aiming for her eyes and mouth. Behind her, a woman was laughing, a look of triumph on her face; someone who looked exactly like Ron was standing near to her, his eyes facing away in shame and conflict.

"... this is the closest thing we had to come out from our small world."

Shego nodded.

"So," said the green woman, "we had some wonderful adventures, I know. We lived entire lives together. I don't understand why you are looking so much at the past."

Kim sighed, and shook her head.

"It's not this, Shego. Here, come with me..."

The redhead put her hands in her pockets and walked down the corridor. Hundreds, no thousands of pictures flew on her sides; Shego took a glance here and there, but she didn't recognize most of the scenes.  
It just seemed that with every step the empty frames and half-worked paintings became more and more common; but Shego said nothing and just followed Kim, her soft steps showing no sign of slowing down even if they were approaching the end of the corridor, where the light started to dim.

A few steps away from the mouth of darkness that gobbled the corridor, Kim stopped, near to another picture; she touched the frame.

"Do you see this one?"

Shego looked. It showed Kim and her fighting, but Kim looked older than she was, holding a pair of what seemed to be Egyptian statuettes or whatever, and Shego was younger, and wearing a Global Justice blue suit; almost half of the picture was still blank, though.

"This one has great potential," Kim said; Shego arched an eyebrow. In her eyes, everything that put her on the wrong side of the law asked for being brought down in flames. "but I don't know if it will ever be finished."

She pointed at the nearby pictures over the walls.

"This or the others."

Kim took another step, closer and closer to the darkness.

"Every one of these pictures pushes it behind."

She paused and made sign to Shego to follow her; the woman did as she was asked, and once again put one of her hands on Kim's shoulder. The redhead kept looking into the black.

"I remember the first days, you know? When all we have were the episodes. The corridor was very short – I didn't have much space. Then, one picture after the other, the room started to lengthen, and show new things. I was so excited when the pictures started to appear. All these new adventures, all these new lives..." She moved her own hand to cover Shego's, "... new relationships."

She paused.

"To be honest, I wouldn't have hoped for it to last this long. I thought that when the episodes would stop, we would have been forgotten soon. Then there had been the fourth season. And then there came the masterpieces," she pointed her finger back, to the point where the golden-framed pictures where hung, "but I'm afraid it will not last for much more."

Kim took a deep breath; Shego just stood there, waiting for her to speak. If there was a thing she knew by now, was that forcing the redhead to do something always brought bad consequences.

After a minute or so, Kim reached with her hand to the darkness; first her fingers, then her hand, and finally half of her flannel-covered arm were shrouded in darkness, like is he had put them into a bowl filled with water and ink.

"I'm... afraid... one day I'll see that one last picture. The last picture to the wall, you know, when the darkness will go away once for all? And I will find myself facing a wall of red paint and this scene in it, and that will be it. Maybe it will not even be great. Maybe it will not even be completed. The last one will be left hanging... unfinished... forgotten." She paused. "I'm cold."

Shego closed up Kim with her body, enjoying for a moment the warmth and softness of the young girl's frame. Even after all these years, she still found it amazing how something that looked so lithe and soft could pack that much a punch, and inside be that much fragile.

The green woman hated being serious – but that didn't mean that she wasn't good at it when it was the time.  
Shego exhaled, more to make Kim hear her breath than to clean up her thoughts. The moment before she was about to voice her thoughts, Kim interrupted her.

"And... and then we will have nothing but a long series of days that will be all the same... and then... and then we will disappear."

Shego passed her hand through Kim's hairs, letting her touch sooth her mind; she counted the young girl's breaths. One, two, three. Four, five. Six. Seven. Eight... nine... and then, when she was sure that she was comfy between her embrace, she spoke.

"You do know that we are blessed with a life much longer than the most of the other cases out there." It wasn't a question, and Kim, still moving her hand in the darkness, nodded slowly.

"Good."

She paused.

"Today we celebrate for two reasons, Princess. Today I withstood Drakken's idiotic antics and the Buffon's... Ron's shenanigans for two reasons. The first reason it's because we're happy to be here. Ten years of new adventures, of new lives... it's something that doesn't happen a lot of time in the world we live in. And this is something to be happy for. There are not many cases where something like that happened after the creator's supply of lifeblood dried up, Kim. We are part of something special, and I believe that, other than the part played by my _sparkling_ attitude, you are the main reason we are all here today."

Shego felt Kim's breath slow down, and she knew that the girl had smiled. She pecked with her lips her fiery mane of hairs.

"I think I may even allow a bit of credit to Ron. But the point is... Kim, you are special. Think about it."

Kim turned her head a bit towards Shego's.

"There are thousands of people out there who stopped writing, or drawing, or whatever they used to do before to work on you, _with_ you. People don't just waste time like that. You – and me – changed _lives_, Kim."

Shego closed her mouth again, and brought her hand back to Kim's head, caressing her locks, for a moment or two.

"And this brings up the second reason, which is way more important." Shego exhaled a breath. "I have to admit that your fears have a grip on reality. I... have a similar corridor to this. I share a lot of paintings with you, and mine is far shorter than yours... I'm used to see the darkness at the end of the room. And I know that when the time will come for me to see my green wall closed with that last picture on it, it could be far before you disappear. My best hope is to be with you on it."

Shego pecked again at Kim's head.

"I don't know if we will be there in a year or two, or ten. But I know that what we did was meaningful. I know that we made people feel and see things that they would have never felt otherwise. I hated you and struggled with you for countless hours, Princess. I killed you and raised families with you. I fell in love with you in every world and I will cherish every time that it will happen again."

Kim moved her head closer to Shego's.

"What I'm sure, Princess, what I'm sure about is that we are celebrating these ten years not only because of us, but also because of the effect that we had out there. Be sure that every sensation, every tear and every laugh you had, I had, we had during these years was shared by every person who knew about us. _That's_ the second reason we celebrate today, Kim. True, times will change, and we may disappear through them. Other worlds and other people will take our place on the great platform of things. But what we had will not go down in history as a dot on the bottom of the page. And the ripples of this pond will go on, Kimmie, bringing with them me and you and all of our world."

im turned completely, and her big olive eyes shuddered; Shego captured them with emerald ones and made them still.

"And when the time comes, it will be as in slumber. But don't worry. I will have cherished everything."

And then Kim hugged Shego, squeezing her ribs in one of her signature deadly embraces; Shego huffed a bit and then smiled, holding the head of the redhead between her arms; the profile of her lips traced secret signs on that fiery mane, and she felt the dampness that Kim left on the curve of her neck.

They stood there for the longest time. Shego inhaled Kim and Kim let her turmoil fade between the words and the hug of the older woman, slowly rocking her form back and forth.

* * *

It was after an unknown number of heartbeats that the two of them finally separated, but by then Kim had her eyes dry, if a bit red, and the feeling of wetness on Shego's dress was almost gone; then, Shego smiled, and Kim smiled back, and the older woman took the girl by the hand, and started to take her away from the darkness at the end of the corridor towards the laughter and sounds coming from the door.

"So," Kim said after a while, "who's next on schedule?"

Shego grinned.

"Oh, I don't know, Princess. I only hope it's something where I'm on top."

Kim nudged at her.

"Seriously? Well... how about an adventure in the nineteen century? Steam, international intrigues, damsels in distress and big explosions! Seems fine to me."

Kim smiled and took Shego's hand in a closer grip.

"It looks good. Who's the...?"

"Oh, I think it's Shaggley."

Her other hand on the door, Kim winced.

"Oh. I'd almost wish all this would already be over."

Shego said nothing, but kept grinning, and, guiding Kim to the party, of which already came the sounds of laughter and noise of shattering glass and porcelain, closed the door of the corridor behind herself.

It was only after a few minutes that at the other end of the corridor, right were Kim and Shego had stood before, another picture appeared on the left side of the wall. It was a small one, framed in silver, and it showed Shego hugging Kim, the young girl's head buried between the woman's arms. They stood in some kind of red corridor, just on the border of some sort of darkness that cut the light of the corridor from where Kim was standing. On the walls of the corridor stood framed pictures, big and small.

Outside of the picture, the darkness seemed to shudder and crawled back a few feet, before settling again, its shroud still covering who knows how much of the corridor behind it.

* * *

_**06/07/2002 – 06/07/2012**_

**The (first) ten years of Kim Possible**

* * *

So, here we are - this is my little gift for the celebration of the decennial.  
Quite strange, because I wasn't there when it started, and likely I won't be there when it will end... but in the course of this year I have read so many wonderful words and stories that I wished to thank you all. Thank you, **Apoptosis**; thank you, **Failte200**; thank you, **AlyssC01**; thank you, **King in Yellow**; thank you, **Sobriety**; most of all, thank you, **TempestDash**.

And everyone else who I didn't pointed out by name, thank you.

Also,** Texan Red Rose** (I know you are there), for you there's a small easter egg. I hope you found it.

* * *

Well, thank you all again, and see you at the end of summer with the first news about _The Iron Years_.

_Buonanotte_.


End file.
